As digital content continues to proliferate, management of digital assets becomes an increasingly difficult challenge. Enhancements in computer networking and database technology allow companies to manage large collections of images and other media and make the content available to third parties. While network communication provides a powerful tool to enable a database manager to share content with others, it makes it more difficult to control and track how the content is being used, and efficiently share the content.
Prior patent documents by the assignee of this patent application describe systems and methods of automated searching and digital watermark screening of media object files on computer networks like the internet. See, e.g., assignee's U.S. Pat. No. 5,862,260, which is hereby incorporated by reference. Software used to perform automated searching and compiling of internet content or links is sometimes referred to as a web crawler or spider.
Digital watermarking is a process for modifying media content to embed a machine-readable code into the data content. The data may be modified such that the embedded code is imperceptible or nearly imperceptible to the user, yet may be detected through an automated detection process. Most commonly, digital watermarking is applied to media such as images, audio signals, and video signals. However, it may also be applied to other types of data, including documents (e.g., through line, word or character shifting, background texturing, etc.), software, multi-dimensional graphics models, and surface textures of objects.
Digital watermarking systems have two primary components: an embedding component that embeds the watermark in the media content, and a reading component that detects and reads the embedded watermark. The embedding component embeds a watermark by altering data samples of the media content in the spatial, temporal or some other domain (e.g., Fourier, Discrete Cosine or Wavelet transform domains). The reading component analyzes target content to detect whether a watermark is present. In applications where the watermark encodes information (e.g., a message), the reader extracts this information from the detected watermark.
The present assignee's work in steganography, data hiding and digital watermarking is reflected, e.g., in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,862,260, 6,408,082 and 6,614,914; and in published specifications WO 9953428 and WO 0007356 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,449,377 and 6,345,104). A great many other approaches are familiar to those skilled in the art. The artisan is presumed to be familiar with the full range of literature concerning steganography, data hiding and digital watermarking. The subject matter of the present application is related to that disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,862,260, 6,122,403 and in co-pending application Ser. No. 09/571,422 filed May 15, 2000, Ser. No. 09/620,019 filed Jul. 20, 2000, and Ser. No. 09/636,102 filed Aug. 10, 2000; which are hereby incorporated by reference.
As an extension of the watermark-based information retrieval described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,862,260 and marketed by Digimarc Corporation (e.g., under the trade name IMAGEBRIDGE), watermark decoders can be employed in a distributed fashion to perform watermark screening and interacting with watermarked media objects on networks, including the internet. For example, watermark decoders are deployed at a variety of locations on a computer network such as the internet, including in internet search engines that screen media objects gathered by each search engine, network firewalls that screen media objects that are encountered at the firewall, in local area networks and databases where spiders do not typically reach, in content filters, in client-based web-browsers, etc. Each of these distributed decoders acts as a spider thread that logs (and perhaps acts upon) watermark information. Examples of the types of watermark information include identifiers decoded from watermarks in watermarked media objects, media object counts, addresses of the location of the media objects (where they were found), and other context information (e.g., how the object was being used, who was using it, etc.). The spider threads, in turn, send their logs or reports to a central spider program that compiles them and aggregates the information into fields of a searchable database.
But the internet is vast. One challenge is to locate watermarked content throughout the web.
Thus, additional improvements are provided to even further explore the depths of the internet for watermark data.
According to one aspect of the present invention, a method of searching a network for watermarked content is provided. The method includes receiving one or more keywords associated with watermarked content and providing the one or more keywords to a network search engine. A listing of URLs that are associated with the one or more keywords are obtained from the network search engine. The URLs are visited and, while visiting each URL, the content at each URL is analyzed for digital watermarking. At least one watermark identifier and a corresponding URL location are reported when found.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a system to direct network searching for watermarked content is provided. The method includes: i) a website interface to receive at least one of keywords and network locations from a customer; ii) a website interface for communication with a plurality of distributed watermark detectors; iii) a controller to communicate keywords and network locations to distributed watermark detectors; and iv) a database to maintain information associated with digital watermarking and corresponding network locations.
According to still another aspect, a method of searching a network for watermarked content is provided. The method includes receiving a visible pattern and searching the network for content corresponding to the visible pattern. Content identified as corresponding to the visible pattern is analyzed for digital watermarking. At least one watermark identifier and a corresponding URL location are reported when digital watermarking is found.
Another challenge is to find and manage content stored locally on a user's computer or on her networked computers. Searching tools have recently emerged to allow a user to search and catalog files on her computer. Examples are Google's Google Desktop Search and Microsoft's MSN Desktop Search. We provide improvements to ensure that metadata associated with images and audio are current and easily indexable by such desktop searching tools.
Thus, according to yet another aspect of the invention, we provide a method including receiving an imagery or audio file; identifying perceptual features in the imagery or audio file; and based on the perceptual features, generating metadata for the imagery or audio file.
In a related implementation, the method further includes indexing the metadata in a desktop searching index.
In another related implementation, the identifying includes pattern recognition, color analysis or facial recognition.
According to still another aspect of the invention, we provide a desktop searching tool including executable instructions stored in computer memory for execution by electronic processing circuitry. The instructions include instructions to: i. search one or more computer directories for imagery or audio files; ii. upon discovery of an imagery or audio file, analyze the file for a digital watermark embedded therein, and if a digital watermark is embedded therein to recover a plural-bit identifier; iii. obtain metadata from the imagery or audio file; and iv. query a remote database with the plural-bit identifier to determine whether the file metadata is current.
In a related implementation, the desktop searching tool further includes instructions to refresh the file metadata with metadata from the remote database when the file metadata is not current.
According to another aspect of the invention, a method of controlling a desktop searching tool is provided. The method includes searching one or more computer directories for imagery or audio files; upon discovery of an imagery or audio file, analyzing the file to determine whether a digital watermark is embedded therein. And if a digital watermark is embedded therein, then a plural-bit identifier carried by the digital watermark is recovered there from. The method further includes obtaining metadata from the imagery or audio file, and querying a remote database with the plural-bit identifier to determine whether the file metadata is current.
According to still another aspect of the invention, we provide a method to gather metadata associated with imagery or audio. The method includes receiving an imagery or audio file including a content portion and a metadata portion; analyzing the metadata to determine at least one of a time and day when the content portion was created; automatically accessing one or more user software applications to gather information associated with at least one of time and day; and adding the information to the metadata portion.
According to yet another aspect of the invention, a method of obtaining metadata for a first imagery or audio file is provided. The method includes determining other imagery or audio files that were created within a predetermined window of a creation time for the first imagery or audio file; gathering metadata associated with the other imagery or audio files; and associating at least some of the metadata with the first imagery or audio file.
According to another aspect of the invention, we provide a method of authoring metadata for an image or audio file or file directory via a computer. The method includes: providing a graphical user interface through which a user can select a category of metadata from a plurality of categories of metadata; and once selected, applying the selected category of metadata to a file or contents in a directory through a mouse cursor or touch screen, whereby the selected category of metadata is associated with the image or audio file or file directory.
Further aspects, features and advantages will become even more apparent with reference to the following detailed description and accompanying drawing.